Your Spiritual Journey
Forgiveness
As the members of our unit discussed the principle of Respect in training this week, our Colonel reinforced this cultural ideal; Assume no evil intent!
We know that everyone we work with is making a sincere effort to do their best to accomplish the mission. So why do we so easily interpret other people’s actions as working against our personal interests?
It’s really easy to see everything in the light of our own perspective. If we’re satisfied with how things are going, then all things are good. If we perceive some sort of disrespect has occurred then things can quickly tip into a downward spiral where everything they do is interpreted as an offense, even when none was intended.
Its no different within the Church. We must intentionally adopt a more noble outlook about others, and suppress the urge to become offended when things don’t happen as we would have liked. If only we had Christ’s ability to see into someone’s heart, but perhaps it’s good that we don’t!
In our current state we’re provided room for us to align our judgements with the Spirit that dwells within us. We can see the potential good in others, rather than simply focusing on their proven faults. It’s amazing what our positive attitude can do to influence others for the better.
I pray that we can maintain harmony within the Church for the cause of Christ by seeing that, more often than not, people truly do mean well in the things that they say and do.
“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Col 3:13)
Andy
